The present invention is directed to structure for joining together parts of a medical implant, in particular for use with open bone anchors in spinal surgery, and in some embodiments thereof, for use with spinal bone anchors such as polyaxial screws having upwardly extending arms with helically wound guide and advancement structures.
Bone anchors, such as bone screws and hooks, are utilized in many types of spinal surgery in order to secure various implants to vertebrae along the spinal column for the purpose of stabilizing and/or adjusting spinal alignment. For example, the most common mechanism for providing vertebral support is to implant bone screws into certain bones which then in turn support a longitudinal connecting member, such as a rod connector, or are supported by the connector. Although both closed-ended and open-ended bone anchors are known, open-ended anchors are particularly well suited for connections to longitudinal connecting members such as hard, soft or deformable rods, dynamic, soft or elastic connectors and connector sleeves or arms, because such rods or other connector members do not need to be passed through a closed bore, but rather can be laid or urged into an open channel within a U-shaped receiver or head of such a bone anchor. Generally, the anchors must be inserted into the bone as an integral unit or a preassembled unit, in the form of a shank or hook and connected pivotal receiver. In some instances, a portion of such a preassembled unit, such as a shank of a polyaxial bone screw assembly, may be independently implanted into bone, followed by push- or pop-on assembly of a receiver portion of the unit that includes the open channel for receiving a rod connector or other longitudinal connecting member.
Typical open-ended bone screws include a threaded shank with a head or receiver having a pair of parallel projecting branches or arms which form a yoke with a U-shaped slot or channel to receive a portion of a rod or other longitudinal connecting member. Hooks and other types of connectors, as are used in spinal fixation techniques, may also include similar open ends for receiving rods or portions of other fixation and stabilization structure. After the rod or other longitudinal connecting member is placed in the receiver channel, a closure, typically in the form of a substantially cylindrical plug is often used to close the channel. Known closures include slide-on types, twist-on varieties that are rotated ninety degrees to a locked in position, and a variety of single start helically wound guide and advancement structures including, for example, thread forms having v-thread, reverse-angle, buttress or square thread forms, to name a few, as well as other non-threadlike helically wound forms, such as helical flanges.
It is known that the angled loading flank of a v-thread closure generates outward splay of spaced open implant receiver arms at all loading levels without limit. Thus, v-threaded closures or plugs are sometimes used in combination with outer threaded nuts that prevent outward splaying of the receiver arms. To overcome the splay problems of v-threaded closures, so-called “buttress” thread forms were developed. In a buttress thread, the trailing or thrust surface is linear and oriented somewhat downwardly in the direction of advancement with respect to the thread axis, while the leading or clearance surface is angled rearwardly in varying degrees, theoretically resulting in a neutral radial reaction of a threaded receptacle or receiver to torque on the threaded closure member being received thereby. In reverse angled thread forms, which theoretically positively draw the threads of a receptacle radially inwardly toward the thread axis when the reverse angle closure thread is torqued, provided the outer tip of the thread is crested and strong enough, the trailing linear surface of the external thread of the closure is angled somewhat upwardly toward the thread axis instead of away or somewhat downwardly from the thread axis (as in conventional v-threads). Although buttress and reverse angle threads with linear loading surfaces reduce the tendency of bone screw receiver arms to splay outwardly, they are not structured to control it and the arms may still be flexed outwardly by bending moment forces acting on the implant arms and the closure threads can be bent, deformed or even sheared off by forces exerted during installation, as well as experienced post-operatively on the implants with certain activities.
Closures made with square threads, again, having linear loading surfaces, theoretically keep all forces axially directed. However, it has been found that under a moderate load, square thread closures produce a marginal splay and under heavy load, splay can be considerable, indicating that traditional square thread machine design theories directed to power screws and other screws for use in substantially closed bores do not adequately describe and reflect the environment of a spinal open bone screw receiver having a relatively small size with spaced apart arms in lieu of a bore. Furthermore, square threaded spinal bone anchor closures have been shown to experience heretofore unexplained and undesirable excess stress concentrated on their upper outer loading flank portions located near the crest of the thread believed by Applicants to be due to outwardly directed rotational pivot and displacement of the mating receiver arm thread flank portions when under the stress of loading between the arms of an open receiver. This occurs during intra-operative tightening and post-operative physiologic loading, which is believed to have resulted in in-vivo loosening in some cases.